Avoid MSI? Good sub $100 PCI-E Socket 754 mobo?

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dannyaa

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Jan 1, 2001
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I'm looking at the MSI Neo3-F (nforce3) mobo, its socket 754 and does PCI-E. Looks like a good motherboard, and I've heard MSI is good... but then I was told to avoid MSI like the plaque... is this true?

If so, what you would you recommend as the best sub $100 socket 754 motherboard WITH PCI-E (pci-e is a must)? I'm putting in an Athlon64 3000+

Thanks y'all :)

Dan

-- Also... would I be better off w/Soltex or Epox? Do they have an s754 board w/PCI-E? --



P4c 3.2Ghz @ 800MHz Northwood / ABIT AI7 / 1GB Corsair XMS-Pro CL2 Pc3200 / 160GB Seagate SATA 7200rpm 8mb cache / BFG-Tech Nvidia GeForce 6800GT 256mb / Antec Sonata case w/Antec TruePower 380W PSU
 
s754 with PCIe boards (nForce4 4X):
1. <A HREF="http://www.asus.com/products4.aspx?l1=3&l2=14&l3=172&model=454&modelmenu=1" target="_new">Asus K8N4E-Deluxe</A>
2. <A HREF="http://www.soltek.de/soltek/product/products_all.php?isbn_st=SL-NF4-754RL" target="_new">Soltek SL-NF4-754RL</A>
3. <A HREF="http://www.giga-byte.com/MotherBoard/Products/Products_GA-K8NE.htm" target="_new">Gigabyte GA-K8NE</A>

Actually I told you to avoid them like the plaGue. Plaque is bad - just not as bad as the plague. :wink:

I would assume that is a Newcastle core A64. Make sure before you click to complete the order. Finding these for sub $100 may be a little difficult because they are new to market. On the other hand they may all be sub $100 because they are intended for budget systems. Easiest way is to do a search.

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<font color=red>You're a boil on the arse of progress - don't make me squeeze you!</font color=red>
 
Plaque, lol... yeah it was a late night last night... :)

Thanks rugger. Man I must be losing it because I think I had already changed my mind and decided to go with the 939 socket PCI-E now... do you have any top recommendations for those? SORRY!!!

Thanks again for everything.

Dan


P4c 3.2Ghz @ 800MHz Northwood / ABIT AI7 / 1GB Corsair XMS-Pro CL2 Pc3200 / 160GB Seagate SATA 7200rpm 8mb cache / BFG-Tech Nvidia GeForce 6800GT 256mb / Antec Sonata case w/Antec TruePower 380W PSU
 
DOH! Is this musical mobos? :smile:

1. <A HREF="http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813136152" target="_new">DFI Lanparty UT nF4 Ultra-D</A>
2. <A HREF="http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=13-123-236&depa=1" target="_new">Epox Ep-9NPA+ Ultra</A>


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<font color=red>You're a boil on the arse of progress - don't make me squeeze you!</font color=red>
 
The difference between the two Epox boards will primarily be features on the mobo. The Epox nF4 Ultra mob may OC better, but I haven't seen any direct comparisons. Wusy may be able to elaborate some more on this.

Asus makes good products, but I think there are better deals to be had on nF4 mobos. That DFI is feature rich compared to the Asus and comes packaged with more "stuff," yet it costs less and OCs better. If cost is a major concern then you would prob be happy with the 9NPAJ - as long as it has all of the features/connections on the board that you need. For sub-$100 it's a great board.

__________________________________________________
<font color=red>You're a boil on the arse of progress - don't make me squeeze you!</font color=red>
 
looks like the non-ultra has SATA1 whereas Ultra has SATA2, and maybe its just a typo but the non-ultra doesnt appear to have any 1394 ports...?

The DFI looks like an awesome board, I'd lean towards that one I was going to do a $125-range board (as opposed to sub-$100), do you agree? However, I saw this on the customer reviews, what do you think...

--------------------------------------------------------

This board is not for the casual builder. Don't expect to slap it together and take off running as it is very picky about ram and drivers. Plan on a BIOS flash immediately, and do your research to find good TCCD RAM. Again, I would recommend this board to the pure performance enthusiast who enjoys hardcore tweaking/overclocking...it is THE board to have- for everyone else it may bring a lot of frustration and will probably not be worth the headache nor time invested to exploit the full performance potential of it.

----------------------------

Sounds like he may be exaggerating, or...? Whats "TCCD" Ram? I have 2x512mb Kingston HyperX DDR Pc3200. I'm somewhere between casual builder and enthusiast, and this will be my secondary comp. Any comments on this board being a pain to setup?

Also someone said can be tweaked to be an SLI board with some work... huh? Is the DFI an SLI board or...? It has 2xPCI-E x16 slots so I assume yes? Whats he talking about, tweaked to be an SLI board?



Wusy, you got some help on those Epox boards?

So it looks like ASUS/ABIT/SOLTEK are out of the picture for a 'best-buy' s939 board? Really?



P4c 3.2Ghz @ 800MHz Northwood / ABIT AI7 / 1GB Corsair XMS-Pro CL2 Pc3200 / 160GB Seagate SATA 7200rpm 8mb cache / BFG-Tech Nvidia GeForce 6800GT 256mb / Antec Sonata case w/Antec TruePower 380W PSU<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Dannyaa on 04/27/05 05:18 PM.</EM></FONT></P>
 
The features you listed (SATA1/2 and Firewire) are typical differences between Ultra/non-ultra boards. Good research on your part - you just have to decide if the non-ultra board has all of the features that you want.

The DFI board is the OCers dream. One of the reasons why is that it has a LOT of BIOS tweaks - enough to be overwhelming. Just because it has all of those features doesn't mean that you have to use them. You should be able to put together the system, start it up with defaults and operate the system. Download the most recent manual and it will explain the features of the mobo - just make the adjustments that you want to make. When the DFFi board first came out Anandtech did an article that showed a simple mod to make the DFI Ultra board into an SLI board. The early DFI Ultras actually had two physical X16 PCIe slots on it. nVidia has since changed drivers/BIOS to remove the capability to successfully use this mod.

TCCD are a series of exceptional memory chips that Samsung makes. A lot of todays high-end memory modules use these memory chips because they can be used for extreme overclocking. You don't have to have memory with TCCDs to use this board, but in order to do extreme OCing on these boards you will need high-end memory. I'm not sure what memory chips are on your Kingston HyperX.

"Best buy" motherboard will depend on what you need want the motherboard to do. Buy the least expensive motherbaord that can do everything that you want it to do and is reliable - it's as simple as that. I can guarantee that each person will have different wants/needs and therefore their best buy will not be the same as yours.

If this is going to be a secondary system for you then I would go with the sub $100 Epox board.

__________________________________________________
<font color=red>You're a boil on the arse of progress - don't make me squeeze you!</font color=red>
 
this board by Epox says it supports dual channel memory for the socket 754???

K8T NeoFIS2R
Athlon 64bit 3400
2X256 Corsaire
Maxtor 40, 120
Western Digital Raptor 74 Gig
ATI AIW Radeon 9700 Pro
NEC LCD Monitor 1760NX
Antec Tru Power 550
Windows XP
 
So, on the DFI, what is the point of having 2 physical PCI-E x16 slots if it doesn't even do SLI? Seems like a waste of space?

P4c 3.2Ghz @ 800MHz Northwood / ABIT AI7 / 1GB Corsair XMS-Pro CL2 Pc3200 / 160GB Seagate SATA 7200rpm 8mb cache / BFG-Tech Nvidia GeForce 6800GT 256mb / Antec Sonata case w/Antec TruePower 380W PSU
 
Whats the deal with the different PCI-E speed slots? What would a x1 slot be used for? What would I need an x4 for over an x1, and an x8 over an x4 for?

When will cards start being available for this new format, and what will they be? Like PCI-E soundcards or what? And will a soundcard likely require an x1? What would require an x4?




P4c 3.2Ghz @ 800MHz Northwood / ABIT AI7 / 1GB Corsair XMS-Pro CL2 Pc3200 / 160GB Seagate SATA 7200rpm 8mb cache / BFG-Tech Nvidia GeForce 6800GT 256mb / Antec Sonata case w/Antec TruePower 380W PSU
 
An X1 slot would be used for things like a sound card, 10/100 LAN (maybe gigabit - but I think you'd want an X2 for that to have the extra bandwidth). Firewire would probably need an x2 slot to get the best performance. An X4 would probably be good for a RAID card or something else that requires very high bandwidth - may be a use for that physics chip that got a lot of press a month or so ago.

Mike.
 
wusy, because dual channel is implemented like that do you think that slows it down??

K8T NeoFIS2R
Athlon 64bit 3400
2X256 Corsaire
Maxtor 40, 120
Western Digital Raptor 74 Gig
ATI AIW Radeon 9700 Pro
NEC LCD Monitor 1760NX
Antec Tru Power 550
Windows XP
 
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